posted
Muslims Against the Cartoon Jihad By Kamal Nawash
Protests have spread across the Muslim world over the publication in European news papers of cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. Outrage over the cartoons has ignited demonstrations from Turkey to the Gaza Strip, and prompted a boycott of Danish products throughout the Middle East.
In Pakistan, hundreds demonstrated on Thursday, chanting "Death to Denmark" and burning Danish and French flags. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak warned that the decision by some European papers to publish the cartoons could encourage terrorists. Consequently, government ministers from 17 Arab nations have asked the Danish government to punish the newspaper for what they called an "offense to Islam" and some countries have even pulled their ambassadors from Denmark.
The controversy intensified on Wednesday when a French news paper, printed a new drawing on its front page showing Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy figures sitting on a cloud, with the caption "Don't worry Muhammad, we've all been caricatured here".
The response by Muslims to the cartoons is absolutely pathetic and depressing but revealing. The reason Muslims are responding with anger and threats of violence is because most Muslims live in countries where democracy and freedom of speech are alien concepts.
Moreover, the Muslim world suffers from a lack of visionary leadership. In this particular case, when Muslim leaders, including American Muslim leaders, realized that Muslims are furious they joined the chorus of fury rather than explain to their people that they must be reasonable and that freedom of speech is healthy even if it is insulting. What is even more disgusting is that most American Muslim organizations, who should know better, have joined the chorus of instigators rather than taking this opportunity to teach their members about the importance of freedom of speech and tolerance.
One would think that Muslims have learned a lesson from the mishaps of the radical Iranian spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini when in 1989, he called on Muslims to kill British author Salman Rushdie for alleged blasphemy in his book, The Satanic Verses. The childish and stupid reaction by Khomeini caused an otherwise poor book to become a number one seller. Similarly today, the stupid reaction by Muslims has caused many more news papers to publish insulting images of the Prophet Mohammed.
When will Muslims wake up and realize that their intolerance of opposing opinions is keeping them in the dark ages? When will Muslims realize that respect must be earned and not forced through violence and coercion? When will Muslims realize that individual liberty and freedom of expression are fundamental human rights? When will American Muslim organization provide solutions to Muslims rather than instigate problems? The Free Muslims Coalition hopes that the answer to all these questions is soon.
posted
What's happening right now is frightening, the news bother me. Seriously, people of different religions have to communicate better with each other. This situation is very unhealthy. What happened yesterday in Syria surprised me very much and made me think a lot. Why people just can't get along?
Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Some people stormed the Danish embassy in jakarta as well. Somebody I know uncharitably( but it is quite likely) said that the people who did this were the least likely to have read or seen the cartoons, nor perhaps be able to read fullstop.I dont know how it is in other countries where it happened, but in indo often they will pay people to do the protesting for them, while the puppeteers sit behind the scenes.....you can get about 10 US dollars and food and drink for the day to lend your body to a protest-plus a coloured bandana sometimes.
Posts: 872 | From: Sydney | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
The problem is that militant Islam is not seeking a level playing field - equality before the law, for instance - but special treatment. Muslims expect, as they should, the benefits and protections of British pluralism but, in too many cases, baulk at the duties that are their corollary. One of those duties is to accept that, in a free society, there are occasions when each of us is bound to be offended. "Everyone is in favour of free speech," remarked Churchill. "Hardly a day passes without its being extolled. But some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like - but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage." There is no excuse for gratuitous offence, of course. But some Muslims might like to consider how insulting their own views on women's rights, theocracy and Western practices are to many non-Muslims.
Posts: 149 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, but XX, there is something else. Moslem's consider the words in the Koran to be the EXACT words of God, spoken IN ARABIC to the prophet Mohammed. So their views on women's rights or suicide bombings or polygamy or testimony in court or punishment for fornicatorsor what to do with the slaves you take from warfare are not individual views. They are the view of God. So, how can you argue with that? The famous response I get to any good debate is, "Why don't you ask Allah that yourself when you see him (ie, die)"
Posts: 1161 | From: wo xiang xiao bian ji si le | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
"BEIRUT, Lebanon - Thousands of Muslims rampaged Sunday in Beirut, setting fire to the Danish Embassy, burning Danish flags and lobbing stones at a Maronite Catholic church as violent protests spread over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Troops fired bullets into the air and used tear gas and water cannons to push the crowds back after a small group of Islamic extremists tried to break through the security barrier outside the embassy.
Demonstrators attacked policemen with stones and set fire to several fire engines, witnesses said. Black smoke was seen billowing from the area. Security officials said at least 18 people were injured, including policemen, fire fighters and protesters. Witnesses saw at least 10 people taken away by ambulance."
What an uncivilized bunch of hooligans.
Posts: 1161 | From: wo xiang xiao bian ji si le | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Muslims upset over Muhammad caricatures; Danes urged to leave Lebanon
Posts: 1161 | From: wo xiang xiao bian ji si le | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Those candles will not help you Ditte, you have a problem that goes far beyond that. Posting candles for peace and tolerance is the kind of thinking that got you into this mess to start with.
-------------------- God Bless President Bush Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
That is your opinion! We have some of the toughest laws when it comes to imigration in Denmark. And I am not sure this is the right way. We have to learn from each other, who says its only muslim countries which can learn from the west?
Posts: 19 | From: denmark | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, since most of them live in stark poverty and we have prosperity I think they can learn from us. What are we supposed to learn from them? Lets see, dictatorial government? How about repression of women? How about intolerance of other religious views and supression of freedom of speech? We might even learn how noble it is to fly jet liners into office buildings and kill some 22 year old secretary who is trying to make a living? Keep in mind when that happened ditte the mideast erupted in cheers, did you miss that? You are just making excuses for facists because you do not want to deal with the problem.
-------------------- God Bless President Bush Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I remember all that, believe me! What I am saying is that we have to be open, not just be the best all the time. I believe that democracy is the best way, not dictatorship. Islam and democracy can live together thats is the point.
Posts: 19 | From: denmark | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
There is no indication anywhere that Islam and democracy can live together. We have to be open but we also have to defend OUR values. Look, Denmark is a part of western civilization and for centuries all of us fought for the freedoms we have. Millions have given their lives for all of this in a 500 year struggle. The problem is that freedom and toleration does not mean weakness and that is what I hear from you. You seem to be taking your liberties for granted and if you do that you will pay a terrible price.
Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
What I meen is that here in Denmark there are a lot of muslims who lives in democracy - I guess also in the States. They find the way to live with their religion in a modern society. Thats the way!
Posts: 19 | From: denmark | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I cannot help but wonder if all satyrical cartoons or written statements that are deliberately designed to stir up religious or racial hatred and tensions, whether they all ought to be banned.
Then we shall have all the 'free speech' lobby start up! But what if they do - is it right that free speech should be used in such a way that it stirs up religious and racial hatred. I cannot help but wonder whether these cartoons were not a deliberate attempt to do just this - only the matter went a bit further than was envisaged. In the UK, attempts have been made for Muslim clerics to stop making religious and racial hate speeches, and to make it a crime to encourage anyone into becoming a suicide bomber.
So, it seems to be a crime to spread religious and racial hatred for the clerics, but when Western newspapers taunt them into doing just that, can we really blame others when they make bombs and blow up our townspeople and cities?
Posts: 304 | From: egypt | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
In general I agree with you...if it's hate speech, it's not *free speech,* but I don't know the political/cultural climate in Europe well enough to comment on it.
However, printing hateful cartoons and blowing people up are *not* moral equivalents. Posts: 8794 | From: 01-20-09 The End of an Error | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
We should be free to criticise ideologies/satirise religion. It is not the same as inciting racial hatred.
Free speech and the climate of fear
The American government is not seeing things clearly. The cartoons, almost all of them comically anodyne, were published because the writer of a book could not find anyone to illustrate it for fear of offending Muslims. The protests are attempting to create a climate of fear to which the non-Muslim world must acquiesce -- in which case the non-Muslim world would have to agree to abide by Muslim demands and standards, which might later include the requirement that women be subject to the authority of men and treated as badly as they are (by Western standards) in the Muslim world, and to acquiesce to much else as well.
The essential principle of modern Western democracy -- as opposed to the jokey purple-thumbed kind that the Administration holds up for admiration in Iraq -- is free speech. The wars of religion are long over. Blasphemy laws no longer exist. In the Western world, one may deplore the "Piss Christ" of Serrano and write letters. One may also suggest that there is no constitutional guarantee to be supported by taxpayers' money in one's exercise of free speech. But otherwise, unless one is attempting to suppress the kind of speech that incites to imminent lawless violence (the Brandenburg test), in the United States other kinds of speech cannot be banned.
What happened is clear: a Danish newspaper, written for a Danish audience, employed Danish cartoonists to make a series of cartoons around and about Muhammad. No one showed Muhammad in flagrante delicto with nine-year-old Aisha. No one depicted Muhammad smiling with evident pleasure at the sight of the lifeless body of the poetess Asma bint Marwan, who had insulted him, leading him to call for her murder. No one depicted Muhammad observing with pleasure the decapitation of the 600-900 helpless prisoners of the Banu Qurayza. No one depicted much of anything, save for a few comic-opera scimitars and, in one case, a turban in the shape of a bomb, and a fuse on that bomb.
Now comes the temptation: the Temptation of Symmetry. There is "hate speech" perhaps here, but then there is "hate speech" on the other side, and both are to be deplored. Are they? Are we by sleight of word, and false symmetries, to give up the defense of free speech in the Western world quite so easily, by suggesting that "we are all guilty"? And that the embarrassed defense of Western principles should descend to the level so often used by Muslims themselves, that of "Tu Quoque"? Is that it?
What is shown every day in the Egyptian, Saudi, and other Arab and Muslim presses certainly ought to be reprinted here and there and everywhere, so that the Western public can get a good long look, and a look that is repeated at intervals. They should also read the hatred and hysteria poured out day after day, in official speeches, in khutbas (sermons), in editorials, on the airwaves, and in the fantastic depiction of Western "atrocities" that Al-Jazeera specializes in. They should look, if they can, at the recruiting sites for Islam -- the ones that provide videos of decapitation of Infidels. The Western public should ask again and again: what kind of people not only are not apologetic about such things, but put them up proudly, as ways to encourage others to join in?
What if the Islamic world, however, were not full of such things? What if it did not possess the satellite channels, the radio stations, the printing press? Indeed, for so long the world of Islam resisted the printing press, which finally came to it from Ibrahim Muteferrika, the Hungarian Jewish convert, in 1729 -- several centuries after Gutenberg had helped transform the West. In that case, we would not have on record all those examples of "hate speech" that Scott McClellan refers to. Then what? Would that mean that we in the Western world are therefore not to print pictures of Muhammad if we see fit, because we must tailor our freedoms to the demands of others who in every respect offer a world of despotism and cruelty that we would not tolerate one minute for ourselves?
Do we only possess our freedoms in the Western world if the Muslims give us the okay, or if by their own behavior we can point to "their hate speech" as being the only justification we can come up with for our own exercise of free speech? Since the Danish cartoons hardly amount, in any case, to hate speech, the false symmetry infuriates.
It would have been better to have dryly noted the hypocrisy of the Arab and Muslim world, rather than making that hypocrisy the main theme, and then gone on to say that "in a certain sense this is irrelevant." All that is relevant is this: Danish cartoonists, hired by a Danish newspaper, for a Danish audience, published some cartoons which were intended to both test, and reaffirm, the exercise of the right, recognized in Denmark and in the United States, of free speech.
That is the issue. Do Danes, and Italians, and French, and Dutch, and English, and Germans, and Americans, and all those who subscribe to the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man, have the right of free speech, without death threats against individuals and institutions, attacks on embassies, and all the other horrifying displays of whipped up mass hysteria that offend -- and will not be forgotten by -- the civilized?
Posts: 149 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Some of us have a difficult time making the distinction between hate speech and action. I can use hate speech if I wish and many people do but I cannot take action that violates the law. What we have are some westerners wanting to compromise their liberties to pacify anti democratic muslims, it is PC at its extreme.
-------------------- God Bless President Bush Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic